


Reminisce

by rtmr



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Loss, Suicidal Thoughts, bcuz i can't help myself, but don't worry!, lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:21:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22046296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rtmr/pseuds/rtmr
Summary: He only remembers when he's sleeping, through many different universes, the person he's missing.--Sehun suffers memory loss through mysterious circumstances. Moving on is a difficult thing when he doesn't know what he's moving on from.
Relationships: Kim Jongin | Kai/Oh Sehun
Kudos: 11





	Reminisce

**Author's Note:**

> lol im sorry this one's an old fic i started in 2018 but i dont wanna toss it either and since obsession came out i decided to upload this on a whim
> 
> since i don't know what to write i decide on uploading something i already had and editing a bit otherwise plz accept...........this........

_It’s just the two of them again. The boy with the wild, strawberry red hair has a duffle bag full of spray paint cans, each a different color. Sehun feels a nauseous excitement mix in his gut as the other looks for a mostly clear patch of concrete. With a sly grin, he shoves a couple of cans into Sehun’s hands and the younger looks around even though there isn’t a soul in sight but their own. He says the other’s name, but it sounds muted. It’s the same every time. When he tries speaking the familiar strangers name, it sounds like he’s trying to say it underwater. But the other boy always turns towards Sehun, always responds even if Sehun himself doesn’t know what he’s just addressed him as._

_“Go on, I’m right here,” the tanned boy says in a soft, low voice, and Sehun steels his nerves as he tentatively sprays a line across a blank swathe of concrete. Sehun didn’t expect the color to concentrate so much paint into the single line as it started to drip down cracked walls. He looks towards the other boy to gauge his reaction, and he receives a thumbs up along with a comforting smile. Sehun continues to draw swirling lines with more measured control. It’s thrilling, painting the wall in commemoration of this moment in time._

_He’s feeling braver, and so, he sprays his initials as well as the other boy’s onto the concrete, vague, but an indicator that they were there. Sehun steps back to take in his work, eyes wandering towards the initials of the stranger, only for it to look like it’s been smudged across the wall while the paint was still wet. He squints, writes the initials again, but they don’t appear at all. The wall is blank again._

_Sehun suddenly jumps when he hears glass shatter, remaining paint cans falling from his arm to noisily tumble onto the ground, the clatter mostly unheard through the echoes of the glass ringing in his ears. With an explosive panic pumping adrenaline into his veins, Sehun turns around with wide eyes only to see the other boy loosely bring the swing of a bat in his hand back like it’s recoiled. The boy is admiring the sprawling trails of shards from a bottle Sehun correctly guesses he smashed._

_“You scared the shit out of me,” Sehun says as he puts his hand over his racing heart and takes in a few deep breathes to calm the wild thrumming. The other boy laughs heartily at Sehun’s reaction and the younger can’t help but cross his arms and pout._

_“I’m sorry, okay?” The other tries appeasing, but Sehun turns his head and huffs. The other boy approaches languidly, bat scraping against the ground and trying to catch Sehun’s eyes by attempting to come into Sehun’s point of view. Sehun refuses his silent request but the other grabs his chin with his free hand and turns the younger’s head to face him. The grip isn’t strong, but Sehun turned with just a gentle pull, easily giving in to the warm touch. Sehun is met with a teasing smile, an upturn of thick lips and playful puppy eyes pleading for forgiveness. It’s not fair, because Sehun melts under the warm gaze all too easily._

_Sehun barely registers being pressed against the wall he was just tagging. A tender, droopy pair of eyes, flat nose, high cheekbones and all too familiar smirk--they all invade Sehun’s vision and he takes each detail in with hardly concealed awe. His chest constricts, swells, his body anticipates the other’s attention in the welcome and exciting beating of his erratic heart._

_“I’ll make it up to you,” He says with an implicit swipe of Sehun’s bottom lip, dragging the petal pink skin softly with the pad of his thumb. Sehun’s breath hitches subtly, the tips of his ears reddening as the other stares at his lips in a trance. The younger licks his suddenly drying lips, accidentally wetting the other’s thumb still on the corner of Sehun’s mouth._

_“And how will you do that?” Sehun asks despite knowing the answer, voice unsurprisingly shaky and small. Lidded eyes push up warmly with a gentle smile, and Sehun closes his eyes, bracing himself as a pair of lips press chastely to his. They press deeper, chapped skin sliding against Sehun’s smoother one and Sehun almost feels as if his knees might buckle under the weight of affection sweeping from his very core to rush out into every limb, every nerve ending._

_The stranger holds Sehun up with a strong arm wrapped around his waist, guiding one of Sehun’s own to rest around his neck. Sehun kisses, demands more, and the wild boy gives him what he craves, licking into Sehun’s mouth. He whimpers, holds onto the other for dear life at the sensation of the intruding tongue invading his mouth, licking behind his teeth, sliding against his tongue. Blunt teeth pull at his lips, letting a soft groan tumble from Sehun’s parting lips, only for his lover to dive back in and deny Sehun the chance to take in a proper breath. Sehun’s heart, mind, his body, they run wild and fill to the brim with crashing waves of every good thing he’s ever known._

_It’s not after a few more blissful minutes until they come up for air, and Sehun has at some point relinquished most of his weight into the smug boy’s embrace; it’s just as well, as Sehun doesn’t know if he can fully trust himself to keep from sliding down the dirty concrete wall._

_“Am I forgiven,” He asks Sehun with a smile that’s entirely too much, it causes Sehun to want to relive this moment—or run away. Sehun nods, smile wide and it hurts because he’s trying to not look so utterly in love, but he is, he knows he is and an anxiousness starts over taking him. He feels sweat run down the nape of his neck, the sides of his face as it sweeps through him. Rough, calloused hands wipe at Sehun’s face, and it’s not until he’s being looked at with such attentive worry that Sehun realizes he’s started crying._

_“Baby?”_

_Sehun pushes the hand away, wiping away at his eyes furiously until his eyes burn from the friction._

_“I’m okay--”_

_Just then, voices echo through the underpass and both boys startle. Heavy footsteps grow louder, closer, and the other grabs Sehun’s hand, prompting them to start running down the expanse of the structure. Sehun looks back as he feels the cold graze of foreign, leather-bound fingers swipe at the back of his neck. It was instinct, in these dreams, to look behind them, looking back to the vision of men in bulletproof vests and heavily tinted helmets, but then his eyes widen._

_There’s nothing there but sweeping darkness. It’s never ended like this before, always transitioning back to the very beginning but somehow always new. It’s not supposed to end like this._

_There’s an inky blackness encroaching as it swallows the world behind both boys and Sehun cries out in fear as his grip on the other’s hand gets stronger. They keep running, but the other boy keeps laughing, care-free and unaware as if it’s just two teenagers avoiding trouble._

_Sehun is afraid, so afraid his heart starts beating in his ears, pounds against his temples, and his throat constricts. The boy leading him to freedom laughs loud, rebellious, while Sehun’s vision blurs with utter terror._

_The ground beneath them cracks under each step they take forward, the abyss behind them spreading it’s thick fog on every wall, eating every pillar supporting the underpass._

_The fog turns dense, and Sehun can feel his body sink with each step as their once joined hands have long let go of their grasp. Sehun tries pulling his legs out of the fog, but it’s like being knee-deep in quick sand. Every step is strained, each exertion of strength weakens and eventually, he’s clawing at the fog coming up to his shoulders as the other stays just out of reach. Sehun cries out, desperate, terrified, vision spotting on top of being clouded by tears. Finally, Sehun’s fingertips graze the other just enough to gather his attention, and he whirls around._

_The last thing Sehun sees is a blurred face, the last thing he hears a confused question reverberating into whispers far away, before his world turns black._

–

“Sehun? Sehun, please,” Someone calls desperately. There’s a wild thrashing, and vaguely, an ache permeating his convulsing body. With a sudden strength pressing his shoulders down, his body finds itself relaxing into reprieve and everything slows to a standstill. It’s silent, the buzzing in his ears dissonant against the voice calling him. Sehun’s eyes finally open with tremendous effort as if they were glued shut. For a few seconds, Sehun’s throat is closed, shut tight with the threat to suffocate him, but then his lungs fill with air, swallowing away the last remnants of his sleep. He coughs dryly, painfully, vision still spotting at the edges, but he manages to look up at the intruder.

He’s greeted by Minseok’s worried expression, eyes searching Sehun’s face. He pats his cheek a few times with a shaky hand to get him to fully wake up, and Sehun recoils at the stickiness of his own skin, sweat-slicked and cold against Minseok’s warmer palm. The other gives him an incredulous look, wide-eyed and disbelieving, along with a slow-forming tentative smile, but Sehun doesn’t miss the way Minseok wipes his hand on his own pants. Sehun feels sorry, won’t pretend to even be offended because he’d do the same if his hand was practically soaked from someone else’s sweat. He had been craning his head to the side to look up at Minseok, but finds he’s too tired to even keep the small strain of his neck up, and flops almost lifelessly back onto the pillow.

Sehun can only keep his eyelids cracked open, but another dark look of concern flashes through Minseok’s features. He wants to assure him he’s fine, but his throat doesn’t want to function, and it hurts from disuse. Sehun parts his lips, but winces from how dry and cracked they are, and just attempting to move them causes a metallic taste to wet his tongue. He whimpers, and his vocal chords ache from the formation of the sound.

Minseok starts calling out to someone, but Sehun’s ears are ringing from adjusting to the noises suddenly filling his head, from the sound of open doors, the rustling of his blankets, the denseness of a flash flood of sun rays. Sehun’s body responds before he can process the flurry of sensory overload, and he fights and jerks away when someone presses something cold to his chest, tries to open his eyelids, puts pressure on his arms. He cries and tries curling away, but his body fights him as well. It sags, pulls him down, locks up, won’t listen, and Sehun is drowning in his own wild panic and blurring tears. His dream starts bleeding into his senses, and every sensation pulls at his skin like fish hooks.

Sehun doesn’t register the fact that he’s screaming, clinging onto Minseok and clawing down his arms as his senses go haywire with fear. The elder doesn’t try prying Sehun off, only presses closer to the boy, tries soothing him and holding him as close as physically possible. The prodding stops, and Sehun hyperventilates into Minseok’s chest.

“Sehunnie, breathe,” Minseok commands with a clear, even tone, “—breathe in, and then out.” Minseok keeps repeating the orders, counts a slow beat for each inhale and counts back to zero for each exhale. He forces Sehun to focus on him, holds his face with strong hands even if the younger tries wrenching them away. But Minseok’s eyes are like magnets; Sehun can do nothing else but stare into them, and somewhere in Sehun’s mind, Minseok’s words take over like a switch was hit. The orders take precedence and his body complies instinctively.

Finally, he feels his lungs burn with air gratefully as it exhales and inhales slower and slower, until only the residual thumping of Sehun’s heart beats against his ears and his world starts coming into clarity once again.

Sehun almost loses it again when the anonymous figure brandishes a needle when Minseok turns it away, keeping Sehun’s head low against his shoulder. _He’s fine_ , he assures, and Sehun only listens to the footsteps retreating after a pause.

The quiet is almost calming, and Sehun thinks he can hear the steady beat of Minseok’s heart just a bit off sync with his own. Minseok pushes him back a bit, and his smile starts off apprehensive before he closes his eyes in relief and rests his forehead against Sehun’s.

“Welcome back, Sehunnie,” Minseok says breathy, relief pouring out of him. Sehun strains with confusion, brows twitching to furrow.

‘Welcome back’?

“Where,” Sehun starts, but his voice sounds foreign, gravelly, and Minseok pulls away carefully. There’s that concern, deep and hallow dark eyes reflecting his own sick image back at Sehun. 

“What do you remember?” Minseok asks like he's assessing the situation, a clear command in his voice despite the slight tremor.

And as Sehun is about to open his mouth with ready memories on the tip of his tongue, they dissipate just as quickly as he tries recollecting them. He can feel his brow furrow, the swell of something in his chest tightening. He swallows the thick realization that there is nothing for him to remember. Then why does he remember Minseok? He remembers the person in front of him, he--

Then it dawns on him that he doesn’t--Sehun can’t recall anything about them together, anything that binds them other than an innate connection. Just knows Minseok, his name, his surname, that he’s older than Sehun, and that he always smells of ground coffee.

“I can’t—I don’t know,” Sehun speaks with a fragile, trembling wisp of his voice.

Minseok’s eyes turn dazed, something beyond devastation, before he forces himself to give Sehun a terrible, sympathetic look. There’s that blur in Sehun’s vision again, a fogged filter that only temporarily lifts when salty tears roll off his bottom eyelashes to his parched lips. Minseok’s thumbs wipe the running trails down Sehun’s cheeks before fully enveloping him in his sturdy arms. Sehun wants to throw up, skin crawling from being held and he trembles like he’s cold and naked.

“It’s okay, it will be okay--,” Minseok starts, gaze much too warm and kind for the sheer grief wracking through Sehun’s too tight chest. He tries communicating the loss, the deep fear inside him at the indescribable feeling of actually knowing his memories are nothing more than smudged ink. There is the understanding that he’s missing something deeply, a nonexistent bearer of his heavy feelings. Sehun wants to say that nothing is okay, that he’s aching in a way that’s so profound, there are no words to carry that emotion.

But it’s too overwhelming, and all he can do is shake in Minseok’s hold, twisting and writhing and withering with the last sounds he can manage before his mind fogs and the warmth radiating against his touch-starved body lulls him back into the void of a dreamless sleep.

–

The next few days are filled with silence in Sehun’s more aware moments. Sehun’s throat still aches from what were actually months of being intubated, artificially kept alive on thin hopes, but perhaps it’s also due to his abusive screams and moments of delirium when he’s on the edge of consciousness. He’s unsure if Minseok has left his side since he’s woken, but the other makes sure to talk him through those moments that are blurry with images cut up and pieced together in meaningless scenes of fear and anger, interjected with Sehun’s own voice desperate for relief. Trying to remember his own shrieks is like attempting to listen to a recording underwater.

There’s a pounding, debilitating ache in Sehun’s chest as Minseok fills the air with his soft voice, but he doesn’t know what it is, why he feels so desperate to rip open his skull for answers. He floats with the timbre of Minseok’s melody, body foreign and traitorous and watching everything from behind a glass window. Other times, he won’t admit that just the mere notes of the other grates at his skin, cut him into ribbons and he tries not to think about ending the ceaseless noises once and for all.

One day, things have an air of unrest. The room is bathed in dimmed lights, the scenery outside dark with clouds and static with heavy rain pouring like all of the oceans were released from the sky. It’s the most soothed Sehun has felt, and his fingers twitch with the new nervousness at the realization.

Sehun doesn’t know how he musters up the courage to speak, to talk, the inflection in his own voice tinny and strange. He thinks it might be because of the sudden downpour causing a tick in the days, the low lights and nonabrasiveness against his eyes. But he blurts out just one of his million burning questions when Minseok is quietly fixing Sehun’s table so that he could eat his watery dinner with ease.

“What am I like?”

Minseok looks surprised, but also unsure of what to say.

“Sehun?”

“You knew me, right? What was I like? Before.”

Sehun feels winded from just the few seconds he took to talk. He coughs, clears his throat, and tries to push himself up so he’s sitting up and hoping the slight stretch of his rib cage helps him catch his breath. Minseok hurriedly clamors to help Sehun, but he flinches violently, hitting the underside of the adjustable table with his knees wrapped in a thick blanket trying to get away from the touch. Minseok looks torn and Sehun feels guilt seep down into his heavy, trembling limbs.

“Not like this,” Minseok starts, voice bitten and disappointed. Sehun implores in his silence, eyes searching the older man’s features.

“You,” Minseok’s lips pull into a thin line, Adam's apple bobbing, “You were so confident. Like anything was yours, that you deserved it.” There’s a dissonance at the characterization, but Minseok stares somewhere at the folds in Sehun’s blankets as if recalling fond memories. Sehun wants to see what the other does in that moment, wanting to know what familiarity feels like. To know what it’s like to know himself.

“You’d never let anyone tell you otherwise. And no one would. Who would want to when everyone loved you?” A glossiness in the other’s eyes makes Sehun want to reach out, but just the thought of purposely touching Minseok causes a wave of disgust inside him.

“E-Enough,” Sehun stammered quickly.

“Sehun, you’re here, but I still miss you so much,” and Minseok hiccups, a sob choked on it’s way out of his throat. Sehun can only look at him with bitterness.

“I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know what for, but the wide-eyed, confused and broken contortion on Minseok’s face makes Sehun apologize even more. For a moment, Minseok seems to try and find something familiar on Sehun’s face, but then his gaze drifts again.

“It doesn’t matter,” Minseok shakes his head. They sit in silence, a thick tension oppressing the air around them. With a rise and fall of Minseok’s shoulders, he promises Sehun one thing.

“You’ll come back, okay? I promise.”

Sehun decides to appease Minseok for a moment. The small and thin, forced smile on his face causes a tinge of iron to wet his tongue.

"Okay."

Minseok looks hopeful and Sehun prefers it.

**Author's Note:**

> anyway thank u if u give this a chance no matter what kind of mess i make of it if i even finish this at all lol i love sekai and i miss them


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